So, you’ve landed yourself a job as a marketing manager.
Congrats!
But how do you make sure you deliver on your goals and meet expectations?
For example:
- How will you maximise productivity in the marketing department?
- How will you develop and improve the current marketing strategy to increase revenue?
30 Things To Do in Your First 90 Days as a Marketing Manager
Starting a new job as a Marketing Manager is difficult. You don't know the company, you don't know your team, and you don...
The best way to come prepared is to have a 30-60-90-day marketing plan. This breaks down your tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks so that you know what to achieve and when.
Luckily, we’re here to help. In this post, we’ll be providing you with a comprehensive 30-60-90 day plan that you can follow in your own role.
Let’s get started.
What Is a 30-60-90 Marketing Plan?
A 30-60-90 day marketing plan is a clear course of action for an employee when they start a new marketing role.
By breaking up the first 3 months into 30, 60, and 90 days, you can create an achievable plan to reach your goals and hit the ground running without overwhelming yourself.
Why Is It Important to Have a 30-60-90 Day Marketing Plan?
As a marketing manager, you’ll be pulled in lots of different directions.
Every department in a business relies on marketing, so be prepared to be busy!
Having a 30-60-90 day marketing plan helps you stay focused and allows you to prioritise your tasks for the first 3 months.
This time period in a new role is important as it’s when you make your first impressions. You should be eager to learn about the company, interested in your team, and understand how to take the marketing department forward.
As well as proving to your boss that you’re capable, a 30-60-90 day marketing plan also helps you to feel more relaxed and in control. By having something to work towards, with key milestones, you can concentrate on the job at hand and better manage your workload.
When Do I Need a 30-60-90 Day Marketing Plan?
In your interview, you may well be asked what you would do in your first three months in the role.
This is so hiring managers understand how you plan to approach the job role and what ideas you have in mind. They want to know if you can organise your team, and ultimately how you’ll manage the marketing department to achieve their full potential.
Not having anything prepared for this question can suggest a lack of planning and effort, so use this opportunity to prove yourself.
You might also be asked to create a 30-60-90-day marketing plan a few days into your new role. This allows your hiring manager to identify any concerns you might have so that they can work with you to resolve them.
Regardless of whether you are specifically asked for a 90 day marketing plan, it is still worth having one. It gives you a sense of direction and something to refer to if anyone questions your ideas.
Okay, now let’s get to the nitty gritty.
30 Day Marketing Plan
Use this time to soak up everything and anything about the business, starting with learning about your team.
We’d suggest:
✅ Meeting every department
✅ Reviewing the current marketing strategy
✅ Speaking to customers
✅ Understanding KPIs
Let’s talk about how you can achieve this in a bit more detail.
Introduce Yourself to Your Team
Number 1 on your to-do list should be introducing yourself to your marketing team. You’re going to be working together every day, so let them know what you’re all about.
Help them understand what you’re expecting from them day-to-day.
This is also a good opportunity to build a relationship with your team – don’t just talk to them about work; get to know them!
Take the time to introduce yourself to other departments as well. Get to know what they do and what they’re currently working on.
The better you know and understand one another, the better you can all work together.
Know Your Audience
If you don’t understand who the business’s target audience is, then you won’t be able to market to them successfully.
Make sure you do your research and understand your ideal customer persona. This explores who they are, their location, their likes and dislikes, where they access your content, and much more.
You can use this information to drive future marketing campaigns to maximise engagement and to reach as many people as possible.
Know Your Product / Service
This is a real biggie.
Without knowing your product or service inside out, you will not be able to market it to customers effectively. You need to understand everything about it, from USP’s to benefits, to price point, so that you can communicate this information in any marketing campaign.
You can’t expect a consumer to invest in your offering if you haven’t invested in it yourself. You need to be able to coherently communicate with customers and provide detailed information.
Know Your Competition
Understanding what your competition is doing is key to success in the marketing industry.
You need to know who you are up against to stay relevant and competitive.
Get to know how your competitors market their products and services, as there might be something you can learn from them.
- Do they utilise certain social media channels?
- Do they attend networking events and exhibitions?
- How do they speak to clients on their blog?
There might be a gap here where your company is currently lacking.
Know Your Strategy
Your strategy will set the entire direction of your time at the company.
You can’t expect to achieve your goals without first developing a strategy. This outlines your budget, your target audience, what tactics you’ll use, key messaging, your position in the market, and so much more.
It also helps keep the whole marketing department on track. If each team member understands the strategy and what you hope to achieve, they will know exactly what to work towards.
If there’s already a strategy in place, take the time to understand it and consider where it could be improved. If there isn’t one, well – now’s your time to shine!
Identify Success
It’s impossible to market effectively if you don’t know what success looks like to your business.
This means both understanding what has and hasn’t worked in the past, and what key performance indicators your brand most values.
Think about:
- What can you learn from these highs and lows?
- Did the department previously try something new which flopped?
- Or did they previously secure PR in a local publication which massively increased brand awareness?
- Does the business prioritise increasing MLQs? SLQs? Website traffic?
You can use this knowledge to inform how you approach future campaigns.
Talk to Existing Customers and Prospects
You can learn a lot from talking to existing customers and identifying what they need from the business.
- Do they communicate any pain points?
- Is there a gap we could fill?
By understanding what your customers need, you can create content that is tailored to them.
Customers are the best way to judge the success of a marketing campaign. By putting their needs first, you can retain current customers and also attract new leads.
60 Day Marketing Plan
At this point, you should have a better understanding of the team and your customers.
Now it’s time to level up your marketing manager skills even further.
Review Brand Guidelines
Your brand guidelines should be your bible.
Without this all-encompassing document, nothing is tying your brand together.
From printed leaflets and blogs to merchandise and web design, everything needs to be consistent.
A customer should be able to look at any of these elements independently and know it is your brand. Without a set of guidelines, these designs will be messy and inconsistent with one another.
Everything from typography to colour palette is included in your brand guidelines, and this should be referred to for every campaign.
Familiarise yourself with these, so you understand how to create content and visuals moving forward.
Check All Marketing Collateral
The importance of this point is often overlooked, but it shouldn’t be.
Your marketing collateral is anything that promotes your business offering to customers.
It includes your business cards, stationery, leaflets, brochures, website, magazines, newsletter, blog posts, white papers… essentially anything customers might find when researching your business.
As a result, it needs to convey the correct message. From content to visuals, every part of your marketing collateral should communicate your brand message.
Make sure you check all marketing materials to make sure they are consistent and up to date.
Speak to External Agencies
Depending on the company, you might work with 4 or 5 external businesses, from creative agencies to printing houses.
Make sure you get to know the different people at each company and what their position is.
This will enable you to reach out to the right person should you ever need to talk to them.
For example, as a marketing manager, you may need to liaise with a creative agency to develop an advertising campaign to launch a new product.
You should be able to communicate with them effectively and feel comfortable picking up the phone to discuss ideas.
Familiarise Yourself with Software
From email marketing software to social media scheduling tools, make sure you feel comfortable using each type of platform.
You will need to find out what each piece of software does and why the business uses it to give you an understanding of the value it can bring.
You should feel confident that you can use each platform independently to the advantage of the marketing department. For example, being able to use Hootsuite or Buffer will save both you and your team lots of time when it comes to scheduling multiple social media posts.
This will free up some capacity and allow you to concentrate on other things.
Get Reports from Tools That You Have Set Up
We mentioned familiarising yourself with your business’s KPIs in the first 30 days, well, now is the time to understand how you can effectively track and report on them.
Reports allow your manager to measure the performance of different campaigns. From Google Analytics to Mailchimp, these reports can be run on each area of marketing activity.
Understanding how your campaigns are performing and how customers interact with your business helps you to make more strategic decisions moving forward.
Setup Tools You Don’t Have Set Up
There might be some helpful tools that aren’t being used yet. This is an opportunity for you to set up and organise anything that you think will help you and your team achieve your marketing goals.
The tools you require will depend on what you’re trying to achieve, whether it’s analytics and SEO, marketing automation, project and task management, or marketing strategy and roadmapping.
Any tool you use should provide you with more insight into how your marketing efforts are working, allowing you to make changes where necessary.
Download the free Marketing Careers Handbook here
Develop Your Team’s Skill Set
You were hired for a reason.
You’ve got a set of skills that your employer thought made you best suited to this role.. You can bring these skills to the people you work with, including those in your immediate team.
You should have a pretty good idea of people’s strengths and weaknesses and which areas they might need further support with.
People will excel and struggle in different areas, and it’s your responsibility as their manager to enhance their professional development.
During your second month, you should identify any skill gaps in the marketing department and identify ways you can help.
Using this knowledge, you can start drafting a training and support strategy that will outline how you plan to develop different employees.
Maybe they could sign up for an online course or shadow a different department to broaden their understanding of that business area. Developing employees is not only advantageous for their own professional development but also for the company, as it increases the expertise of the team.
We’ve created a free Marketing Careers Handbook which details the information every marketer needs to know when it comes to career progression. From understanding what skills are required at what level, to providing a list of marketing resources to aid development, this handbook can help you support the growth of your team.
Contribute to Company Wide Goals
As a marketing manager, you’ll be included in company wide initiatives, and you’ll be expected to bring your ideas to the table.
Your CEO and other managers will want to hear your views on how the business can grow.
Be ready to contribute your own thoughts and ideas in executive and board meetings. Be confident in your own views, even if they’re different from someone else.
Don’t shy away from the opportunity to make a real difference.
90 Day Marketing Plan
We’re nearing the end of your first 3 months, so your responsibilities will shift to understanding marketing and sales processes so that you can make the most impact.
Market Yourself
It might sound silly, but marketing yourself is one of the most important things you can do in your job role.
As a marketing manager, you should never stop promoting your personal brand.
Your CEO and hiring manager have faith in your abilities; otherwise, you would never have landed the job in the first place. You’ve been put in a position of responsibility, so make sure you show that they have made the right decision.
You need to be strong, confident, decisive, and sociable. Every department will draw on marketing at some point, so make yourself known and build relationships with key people within the company.
Map Out Your Funnel
If you want the sales process to run smoothly, then you absolutely must create a marketing funnel.
By mapping out the process of transforming a visitor into a lead or paying customer, you are outlining the customer’s journey from start to finish. This is a key resource for both the sales and marketing teams.
By understanding the process in its entirety, you can concentrate on creating content that facilitates the transition from the ‘awareness’ stage (where a customer first learns about your product) through to making a sale. This could be in the form of case studies, whitepapers, and webinars.
Conduct a Brand Audit
Has revenue taken a bit of a dip lately?
Have you lost some of your customers to competitors?
These are reasons as to why you should conduct a brand audit. This process lets you get inside your business and review what’s working.
Your brand is what sets you apart from your competition, and if it’s not working for your customers, then it needs to change.
It needs to appeal to your target audience and convey your brand messaging effectively.
Undertaking this process as a newly appointed marketing manager is very important as it provides you with the opportunity to improve your branding by implementing corrective strategies if anything isn’t working.
Conduct a Website Audit
A website audit allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your website.
This is usually the first thing people see when they are learning about your company. Think about it: if we hear a brand name or learn about a service we’re interested in, the first thing we do is plug it into Google and have a nosy around the website.
As a result, it’s important that the website experience is enjoyable for users and makes them want to invest in your offering.
By conducting a website audit, you can identify ways to increase your online presence, and in turn, increase user engagement.
Conduct a Content Audit
Regardless of your business, you should never underestimate the value of content marketing.
But is your current content serving its purpose?
Conducting an audit allows you to sift back through your existing content to make sure it’s all communicating the right message.
Maybe your tone of voice has changed, or your target audience has, and you need to tweak your content to suit this.
It’s never a good idea to just create something and leave it hanging. Things change quickly in the world of content marketing and making time to review what currently sits on your website is a great way of staying relevant.
Review Social Media
As you’ll already know, social media is a fantastic tool when it comes to promoting your business.
By using different platforms, you can engage with a large audience and increase your brand visibility.
But it’s important that you’re using the right social media platforms and posting the right type of content.
Not every channel works for every business, and your team should concentrate on what’s generating the most results.
Maybe you have a bakery business, and Instagram receives the highest level of engagement. I mean, who doesn’t want to see photos of cakes?!
Or maybe you work for a SaaS business, and LinkedIn is key to targeting B2B professionals.
If you identify where your target audience is most engaged, you can focus on producing the right type of content for the right platform.
Get On Top of Your Marketing Budget
As a marketing manager, you’ll most likely be in charge of the marketing budget.
It will be your responsibility to work out how and where this budget should be allocated.
Typical costs for the marketing department include:
- A design retainer with an external agency
- Advertising
- Exhibitions
- Printing brochures
- Producing merchandise
- Staff expenses
- Digital software
- Camera equipment
- Website development
- Events
All of these areas cost money, and it will be up to you to decide how much budget should be spent.
Maybe you need to cut back in a certain area, or invest more budget into another area that’s doing well. For example, you might choose to ditch a certain exhibition this year because it’s not generating enough leads.
Or perhaps you need to buy another license for Adobe Suite as the team has now expanded and they need access to the online tools.
It’s your job to correctly calculate these expenses and to justify your budget to your CEO or immediate boss.
Finally, Get Ready for Success!
You’re at the final stage of your 90 day marketing plan, BUT the hard work certainly doesn’t stop here!
Assuming you’re good at your job, then success is on it’s way.
You will have made your mark on the company by now. Your CEO and other managers should be able to see how you’ve approached the role and how you’ve contributed to growing the business.
If you’ve been eager to learn, contributed ideas, developed a sound marketing strategy, and proven your capabilities as a manager, then it’s time to look forward.
- What operations and processes need to be improved?
- What resources are lacking?
- Are there gaps in your department that need to be filled?
This is the exciting bit as you can start practically implementing your vision and driving the business to success.
30-60-90 Day Marketing Manager Plan FAQs
Before we finish up, let’s turn our attention to some frequently asked questions regarding a 30-60-90 day marketing manager plan.
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What is a 90 Day Plan?
A 90 day plan is a clear course of action for an employee when they start a new job role.
By breaking up the first 3 months into 30, 60, and 90 days, it provides a more realistic and achievable plan moving forward.
This enables both an employee and hiring managers to have a clear understanding of key milestones so they can prioritise different tasks.
By creating concrete, actionable goals, it allows an employee to smoothly transition into a new organisation without worry.
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How Can I Create a 90 Day Plan?
You can create your own 90 day plan by downloading our very handy resource (linked in this post).
Follow its instructions and you should have a complete 3 month plan!
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What Makes For a Good Marketing Plan?
A complete marketing plan makes for a good marketing plan.
In other words, be as comprehensive as possible with what you’re hoping to achieve and how you’ll get there.
90 Day Marketing Plan: What to Do In Your First 90 Days
The role of a marketing manager is both exciting and complex.
Be prepared to be leaned on by various departments as you get stuck into every aspect of a business.
That said, it’s a fantastic opportunity to make a real difference. Marketing is at the heart of every single company and without it, you wouldn’t have any customers to sell to.
There will be hundreds of things on your to-do list, and you’ll want to hit the ground running.
Having a solid 30-60-90 day marketing plan lets you prioritise your workload for the first 3 months and will help you achieve key milestones.
It’s something to refer back to and will keep you on track should you ever get lost in the marketing madness!
At Canny we know firsthand how much you have on your plate, and how much is expected of you. Thankfully we’re here to take a little bit of pressure off so that you can concentrate on success.
From branding to website design, we give you total peace of mind that your project is in safe hands. Speak to a member of our team to see how we can help!
